Les Miserables rolls along, defeating West Side Story to advance to the quarterfinals. Les Miserables took 66% of the votes in this matchup, and is easily defending its #1 seed. Tonight, Somewhere in America, Something’s Coming to Maria to make her Feel Pretty. Unfortunately, it won’t be in the quarterfinals of this tournament.

Light in the Piazza continues its unbelievable cinderella-esque run, advancing past the highly touted Mamma Mia to advance, taking 57% of the votes. Thank You for the Music, Mamma Mia, but its time to call an SOS, because the Winner Takes it All, and its not going to be you this time. Better luck next time.

The upset of this round goes to Hairspray, taking out the #1 Phantom of the Opera. 71% of the votes is a substantial amount to beat the longest running Broadway show of all time, yet, they did it. We’re now past the Point of No Return, and All I Ask of You, is, Why So Silent, Phantom? Poor Fool, He Makes Me Laugh.

Legally Blonde is one of three #15 seeds to make it through to the next round, beating In the Heights by taking 70% of the votes. It Won’t Be Long Now until someone is sipping Champagne, but When You’re Home, you can watch the results, because it won’t be you, In the Heights.

In what I think was the hardest matchup to choose between, Wicked beat my dark horse, Spamalot by a whopping one vote, 11-10. “I Am Not Dead Yet,” said King Arthur, “Whatever Happened to My Part? I’m All Alone.” Sorry, Spamalot, off to Finland you go, because You Won’t Succeed on Broadway this time around. Here’s some advice: Always Look on the Bright Side of Life.

Sweeney Todd is another #15 seed to make it through, beating 42nd Street by 65% of the votes. I think its time to be Getting Out of Town, Dames, and Shuffle Off to Buffalo. You know what though? There’s a Sunny Side to Every Situation.

Book of Mormon had a scare against Into the Woods, winning 10-9. I Guess This is Goodbye, Into the Woods.

Rent beat A Little Night Music 14-7, ending the run of the #14 seed. Now, A Little Night Music won’t be living the Glamorous Life. It Would Have Been Wonderful if they made it further, but, alas, Send in the Clowns.

Les Miserables continued its utter dominance against The Music Man, taking 85% of the votes.Coming off of a dominant performance of their own, Harold Hill and the Iowa Stubborn were not up to par and this was never close. Can anyone stop Les Miserables?

West Side Story also continued rolling along, beating The Producers by 65% of the votes. Where Did They Go Right? They didn’t. Keep it Gay, Producers.

Mamma Mia advances to the Sweet 16, beating Oklahoma, 11-9. Oh, What a Beautiful run they were having, until they ran into the Greek party that is Mamma Mia. Go to your Lonely Room and think about what you’ve done, Oklahoma.

Light in the Piazza continues its cinderella run, winning 76% of votes versus the classic Annie Get Your Gun. Definitely the surprise of the tournament so far, Light in the Piazza continues to say, “Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better.”

Phantom of the Opera moves along easily after a battle with The Sound of Music. Phantom took a comfortable 65% of votes, and the Hills are no longer Alive with The Sound of Music.

This next matchup is going to be a doozy. Hairspray beats Fiddler on the Roof, meaning it faces Phantom next. No more bottle dancing in this tournament, as the kids from Baltimore shut down Tevye and friends.

In the Heights quietly continues to do well, beating Gypsy 11-7. New beating old seems to be the theme of this tournament.

Two low seeds will face off next, as Legally Blonde also moves on, beating Pippin. This sets up a nice matchup of the crazy Spanish people versus the crazy Harvard kids.

Spamalot squeaked out a 10-9 victory against Singing in the Rain. They didn’t Make ‘Em Laugh in this matchup. King Arthur and his Knights move on to face…

Wicked! This will be another well fought battle. Avenue Q didn’t stand much of a chance versus Wicked, who took 79% of the votes. What Can You Do With a B.A. in English? I’m not sure, but you can’t win this tournament. No puppets allowed.

42nd Street ends Man of La Mancha‘s tournament, winning 72% of votes. The Impossible Dream is just that, and will have to settle for a run at the Stratford Festival this year. Poor Don.

Also continuing its strong run is Sweeney Todd. It took 75% of votes vs Guys and Dolls, and sends them packing.

The Book of Mormon continues its cruise through the bottom right part of the bracket, knocking off the #1 seeded A Chorus Line, 14-5. Don’t call us, we’ll call you. Thank you.

Into the Woods has been one of the surprises of the tournament thus far. My Fair Lady didn’t stand a chance, losing by 85% of the vote.

The Sondheim musicals keep dominating in this section, as A Little Night Music takes out Jersey Boys, 11-7. Big Girls Don’t Cry, though, so wipe those tears and move along now.

Rent took care of Mary Poppins, who I thought would do much better in this tournament. Turns out a Spoonful of Sugar doesn’t really help, and Anything Can Happen, so long as winning doesn’t count as “anything.”

Onward we march, toward the Elite 8. After that, the Final Four will be crowned, and at last, a champion. Can anyone stop Les Mis? Will Book of Mormon continue its dominance? Will Legally Blonde hold on as the only #15 seed left? Answers and more, coming up:

Round 1 is finished! Onto Round 2 we go. This is where we determine the men from the boys. The women from the girls. Some musicals may have just gotten lucky, but this is a round where all the winners face off. First, we recap.

Oklahoma absolutely manhandled The Pajama Game. This wasn’t even close. Pajama Game is apparently Not At All in Love with winning, because they were never in this, losing by 87% of the vote. Now, we put The Pajama Game to bed.

Annie Get Your Gun beat out the polarizing La Cage aux Folles who, upon hearing the news that they lost 14-9, stomped out of the building, yelling, “I Am What I Am!” Heels and all.

The Music Man gets the award for most lopsided win (after the number 1 ranked Les Mis, of course), beating Evita 20-3. Even Ricky Martin couldn’t save this matchup, and was definitely heard crying for Argentina in the bathroom stall after this one was over.

In the Heights beat out the (not so) adorable Annie, taking 70% of the votes. The Sun Will NOT Come Out Tomorrow, so don’t even think about it Annie.

Pippin defeated The King and I, 15-8, and sends the R&H classic packing. “I Have Dreamed of winning this,” quoted the King. Not anymore sir, not anymore.

The Sound of Music survived a first round scare against the newer Crazy For You. 12-11 was the final score, and Crazy For You doesn’t have rhythm anymore.

The Impossible Dream lives on, as Man of La Mancha beat Kiss Me, Kate by taking 63% of the votes. I guess the competition was just Too Darn Hot for Kiss Me, Kate.

Guys and Dolls edged out South Pacific 12-10. It makes sense though, because South Pacific is In Love With a Wonderful Guy, and was completely distracted throughout this matchup.

Spamalot laughed its way past How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, taking 65% of votes. Finch and his Brotherhood of Man are going to have to try a little harder to get past King Arthur and his Laker cheerleaders.

As most of you are aware, the NCAA college basketball tournament spawns bracket makers from all across the continent, creating controversial picks and frustrating sports lovers for years. But what if we could make a bracket about something else? How about…musicals!? Yessssss.

That’s right. I’ve created the ultimate musicals bracket. Here’s how it works:

I’ve picked 64 of the most popular/successful musicals, and tried to find a way to rank them objectively, a la March Madness. I thought and thought, til my puzzler was sore, and I came up with the idea to rank them based on the length of their Broadway runs. Let’s just get to the bracket and round 1 of voting., and I’ll explain the ranking system after.

There she is! Take a look for yourself and make a plan. And lets just start the voting now. I’ve shown the first 4 match ups, and then I’ll gauge interest from there, so that I don’t end up posting one question per day. Vote with whatever criteria you’d like! Share and tell your friends!

Your first 4 match ups arrrrrrrrre:

**Voting for Day 1 is closed! Head over to Day 2 to vote on the next round!**

I seeded/ranked the musicals based on the length of their original Broadway runs. If they didn’t have a Broadway run, I based it on their West End run. I used this site. The entire system is (unfortunately) not that linear though because, as you’ll notice, some of the musicals that became mostly famous because of their film version, did not have incredible Broadway success. Singing in the Rain, Wizard of Oz, Mary Poppins and Grease were all extremely popular as films, but their Broadway runs were not as successful, for example.

Also, two other musicals that stand out are Little Shop of Horrors, and The Book of Mormon. Little Shop had 2,209 performances, which would have made it 28th all time, just ahead of Jersey Boys. However, the whole run was Off-Broadway. I couldn’t think of a fair way to quantify that, so I simply chopped the number in two. 1,104 performances put it in the spot its in. The Book of Mormon is currently at approximately 1264 performances, and will continue to grow, and when its done, who knows where it will be on this list. For now though, it sits in the 9th spot in its category.

I also left some popular ones out. Sorry. Came down to 64. It’ll be fine.

To seed them, I made four columns and, reading left to right, continuously filled in spots. For example, the top 4 Broadway runs of all time are Phantom of the Opera (9,451), Cats (7,485), Les Miserables (6,680) and A Chorus Line (6,137). Those four became the number 1 seeds. The next four longest runs became the 2 seeds, and so on.